David "Honeyboy" Edwards | |
|---|---|
 Edwards performing in July 2006 | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as | Mr. Honey |
| Born | David Edwards (1915-06-28)June 28, 1915 Shaw, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | August 29, 2011(2011-08-29) (aged 96) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Genres | Delta blues |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1930s–2011 |
| Labels | |
| Website | davidhoneyboyedwards |
David "Honeyboy" Edwards (June 28, 1915 – August 29, 2011) was an Americandelta blues guitarist and singer fromMississippi.[1]
Edwards was born inShaw, Mississippi.[2] He learned to play music from his father, a guitarist and violinist.[3] At the age of 14, he left home to travel with the bluesmanBig Joe Williams, beginning life as an itinerant musician, which he maintained through the 1930s and 1940s. He performed with the famed blues musicianRobert Johnson, with whom he developed a close friendship. Edwards was present on the night Johnson drank the poisoned whiskey that killed him,[4] and his story has become the definitive version of Johnson's demise. Edwards also knew and played with other leading bluesmen in the Mississippi Delta, includingCharley Patton,Tommy Johnson, andJohnny Shines. He described the itinerant bluesman's life:
On Saturday, somebody like me or Robert Johnson would go into one of these little towns, play for nickels and dimes. And sometimes, you know, you could be playin' and have such a big crowd that it would block the whole street. Then the police would come around, and then I'd go to another town and where I could play at. But most of the time, they would let you play. Then sometimes the man who owned a country store would give us something like a couple of dollars to play on a Saturday afternoon. We couldhitchhike, transfer from truck to truck, or if we couldn't catch one of them, we'd go to the train yard, 'cause the railroad was all through that part of the country then...we might hop a freight, go toSt. Louis or Chicago. Or we might hear about where a job was paying off – a highway crew, a railroad job, a levee camp there along the river, or some place in the country where a lot of people were workin' on a farm. You could go there and play and everybody would hand you some money. I didn't have a special place then. Anywhere was home. Where I do good, I stay. When it gets bad and dull, I'm gone.[5]
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ThefolkloristAlan Lomax recorded Edwards inClarksdale, Mississippi, in 1942 for theLibrary of Congress.[2] Edwards recorded 15 album sides of music,[2] including his songs "Wind Howlin' Blues" and "The Army Blues".[6] He did not record commercially until 1951, when he recorded "Who May Be Your Regular Be" forArc under the name Mr. Honey.[2] Edwards claimed to have written several well-known blues songs, including "Long Tall Woman Blues" and "Just Like Jesse James". His discography for the 1950s and 1960s amounts to nine songs from seven sessions.[6] From 1974 to 1977, he recorded tracks for his first full-length LP,I've Been Around, released in 1978 by the independent labelTrix Records[7] and produced by theethnomusicologistPeter B. Lowry.Kansas City Red played for Edwards for a brief period, and Earwig recorded them in 1981, along withSunnyland Slim andFloyd Jones, for the albumOld Friends Together for the First Time.[8]
His autobiography,The World Don't Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards, published in 1997 by theChicago Review Press,[9] recounts his life from childhood, his travels through the American South, and his arrival in Chicago in the early 1950s. A companion CD with the same title was released byEarwig Music. His long association with the Earwig label and with his manager,Michael Frank, led to several late-career albums on variousindependent labels from the 1980s on. He also recorded at a church turned recording studio inSalina, Kansas, and released albums on the APO label. Edwards continued the rambling life he described in his autobiography, touring well into his 90s.
Between 1996 and 2000, he was nominated for eightW. C. Handy/Blues Music Awards, including for his albumsWhite Windows,The World Don't Owe Me Nothin',Mississippi Delta Blues Man, and a 2007 album on which he appears withRobert Lockwood Jr.,Henry Townsend andPinetop Perkins titledLast of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesmen: Live In Dallas.[10] The latter album won aGrammy Award in 2008.[11] He also won the W. C. Handy Blues Award in 2005 and the Blues Music Award in 2007 for Acoustic Blues Artist.[10] In 2010, he received aGrammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[11]
On July 17, 2011, Frank announced that Edwards would retire because of ill health.[12]
Edwards died ofcongestive heart failure at his home on August 29, 2011, at about 3 a.m.[1][13] According to events listings on the Metromix Chicago website, he had been scheduled to perform at noon that day, at theJay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park.[14]
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In the 1991 documentaryThe Search for Robert Johnson, Edwards recounts stories about Johnson, including his murder.[citation needed]
Edwards is the subject of the 2010 award-winning filmHoneyboy and the History of the Blues, fromFree Range Studios, directed by Scott Taradash. The film features stories of his life from picking cotton as asharecropper to traveling the world performing his music. Artists who appear in the film includeKeith Richards,Robert Cray,Joe Perry,Lucinda Williams,B. B. King,Big Joe Williams, andAce Atkins.[citation needed]
Edwards appeared in the 2007 filmWalk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.[15]
